Once upon a time there was a linen tablecloth. It was a round table cloth with an overlocked edge, gifted to me by someone who no longer had a round table.

It went into the dyepot one week, but since the dye pot is only so big, I tore it into strips and dyed it that way, mostly with E Scoparia, but also with cotinus (smokebush) leaves and flowering heads picked when they poked out through a fence near our food co-op. I really could not believe the purple from the cotinus and I am not sure why it happened. Needless to say, I will try that again and see if it repeats. I did also try woad leaves but that was less spectacular. Pinky but not very leaf printy.

Some time last year I had a sudden whim to turn it into Merchant and Mills Top #64 and pieced parts together to make that happen, and cut it out. Then after a while it was rolled up. Then it was parked for some months. Just recently I did some cleaning up and thought maybe I should finish some things. I just sewed a seam or two a day in a busy time.

Since so many readers here were interested in my recent discussion of interfacing, here’s what happened this time. I cut the neck facing out of a piece of leaf printed calico. I actually cut it back out of a piece of patchwork, also unfinished.

The interfacing fabric is a piece of a much loved kimono that has passed beyond the mending interest of my mother-out-law. You can see it layered under the facing here after stitching teh layers together but before finishing the edge.

I think my mother-out-law is rather enjoying being able to send me her raggedy, beloved things as they get past the point of original use and getting stories of their conversion into all manner of other things. I stitched the two pieces of fabric together and overlocked (serged) the outer edge. Here it is pinned on and ready to stitch.

And finally…

Here is the back view:

And some closer views…

It is rather stiff at present, after its preparatory baths in soy milk mordant. But that will change with more washing.

All the little bits and pieces were, needless to say, so interesting to me that I patched them together months before I sewed the garment!

8 responses to “Transformations: Table cloth to top #64”

Nice top but I LOVED the ‘crazy’ Log Cabin type piecing. I just ‘found’ haha a piece that I had done and meant to put it on the back of a jacket…I still might! Lovely greens and jungle prints and a bit of orange for fun.

Maybe the time hasn’t been right yet–I don’t think it’s obvious you are a slacker! This weight of fabric, and the variety of prints, really called out to be made into this pattern somehow…. I agree, the cotinus is amazing, but quite possibly unrepeatable (by me, at any rate…)